


Truth Being Seen

by Rellanka



Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [29]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Angst, Confrontations are never fun, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Multi, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24086722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rellanka/pseuds/Rellanka
Summary: Cloud confronts Jessie and Biggs about their behavior lately. He gets more answers than he expected.
Relationships: Biggs/Cloud Strife, Biggs/Jessie (Compilation of FFVII), Biggs/Jessie/Cloud, Jessie/Cloud Strife
Series: A Year Of Cloudy Skies [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697269
Comments: 3
Kudos: 133





	Truth Being Seen

Biggs and Jessie were acting a little weird around Cloud again. 

Well, alright, they usually acted a little weird around Cloud. Not that Cloud was one to talk, not exactly being normal himself. 

But their weirdness was somehow just growing to be **more** weird the longer it went on. 

Cloud wasn’t talking about the flirting. No, the flirting, while mildly concerning considering that Jessie was obviously thoroughly taken, wasn’t really that big of a deal. Biggs certainly never seemed to mind it that Jessie flirted with Cloud, and if Cloud wasn’t **really** getting the wrong message, he could almost swear… that sometimes Biggs flirted with him, too?

But either way, it wasn’t the flirting. 

It wasn’t the touching, either. The way that both Jessie and Biggs seemed to take it as a personal mission to acclimate Cloud to personal touch again, somehow knowing exactly when it was too much and when they needed to draw back, was nicer than Cloud wanted to admit. So no, it wasn’t the touching, which was almost normal by now, anyway. 

It was the way that the concerned looks they’d been sending him from the very beginning were starting to grow deeper in worry as time went on, with Cloud not seeing any reason for it. Besides the increasing number of times that some hallucination of Sephiroth had popped up lately, times that Biggs and Jessie had largely **not** been there for, Cloud was about the same as he had ever been. Maybe even a little bit better with the care of people he was beginning to trust. 

It seemed like they saw something Cloud couldn’t when those looks grew more worried, and it caused Cloud’s shoulders to stiffen with his frustration when all his attempts to see what they saw always fell short. Sometimes, he would almost see a glimpse of something, but then… It really was frustrating. A frustration that was beginning to show visibly, and he didn’t think that it was really a surprise to any of them when he finally got annoyed enough to confront the two. 

“Alright, what? What is so wrong with me that you both look like you think I’m dying slowly every time you see me lately?” Cloud demanded as he shut the door behind him and locked the three alone together in his room. It was an important question, because despite himself Cloud had grown to _like_ Biggs and Jessie. To like them more than he wanted to admit. But he didn’t like the way that lately they sometimes looked like they thought he was one step away from falling apart. 

“Aww, you really wanted to get us alone, did you, pretty boy? You should have-“ Jessie began to deflect with her standard flirtation, when Biggs cut her off. 

“Jessie.” He said, meeting his soulmate’s eyes in an instance of silent communication that Cloud hoped would lead to this being settled, “We should tell him.” 

After a moment of stubborn silence Jessie deflated with a sigh and a nod, looking nervous as she walked over to Biggs to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Even if they didn’t know it they were presenting a united front, Cloud realized. Whatever their reasoning was, they didn’t expect this conversation to go well. 

“Cloud.” Biggs began levelly, “A while ago Jessie and I performed the Soulmate Test.” 

Cloud frowned at the change of topic. 

“I figured that you had, when you guys said you were soulmates.” He said, willing to go along with it for now. 

“Yeah, well…” Biggs said, raising a hand to rub the back of his head awkwardly and looking anywhere but at Cloud. Beside him Jessie was silent, staring intently at the ground with her bangs hiding most of her expression. “The string between us wasn’t the only one we had. We each had another one.” Biggs swallowed hard and turned his gaze back to Cloud, “One that led to you.” 

Cloud didn’t even realize what he’d heard at first, the idea so unbelievable to him that he thought he was having another, odder type of hallucination. It was only when he noticed the expectant looks both Biggs and Jessie were leveling at him that the shock hit him, strongly enough to buckle his knees and send him gracelessly to the floor. 

“Cloud!” Biggs and Jessie both shouted as they quickly took the few steps closer to get to his side, where they hovered over him worriedly. 

“We’re- we’re _soulmates?_ ” Cloud asked a bit drunkenly as his ears rang, feeling a little like he was underwater, everything slightly distant and floaty. 

“Yeah. We know that it’s not what you were expecting, considering… considering you had already had a completed tri soulmate bond before.” Biggs said carefully, crouching down and running a gentle hand through Cloud’s hair, “But we can see the strings between us as clear as day. There’s no mistaking what they mean.” 

“I’ve never had a completed soulbond before, and definitely not a tribond.” Cloud corrected as the words broke through his haze, brow furrowing. For some reason, even as he said them… the words seemed **wrong** , somehow.

Jessie and Biggs traded a nervous glance and were silent for a long time. 

Finally, Jessie said delicately, “You did though, Cloud. At some point, you did. Strings… they never lie.”

“I- I don’t **remember** having a completed soulbond.” Cloud replied, his mind racing all over again at the implication of that.

The silence in the room resumed as Cloud accepted Biggs comforting touch even as he tried- he tried so hard- to remember what he had apparently lost. 

Cloud was feeling steadily sicker by the second as the memories didn’t come. He knew that his memory was incredibly faulty, knew that there were large chunks of memories that were missing or didn’t make sense. But how could he have forgotten having bonded soulmates? How could he have forgotten something that vital, that important? Bonded soulmates weren’t like all of the other things he’d forgotten, like how he’d gotten into Soldier or even who he’d known in Shinra. Bonded soulmates were like the heart in his chest, and forgetting them should have been like his heart forgetting how to beat. Impossible and unthinkable. 

But somehow he’d managed to?

“How. How could I have forgotten something like that?” Cloud asked helplessly, to the world more than to Jessie and Biggs. He just didn’t believe that he’d managed to forget the two people who should have been everything to him. 

“We don’t know.” Jessie said gently, sitting down on the floor besides Cloud and daring to reach a hand out to take Cloud’s own. Cloud didn’t try to stop her, so emotionally distraught that he was glad for the additional gesture of comfort. “We- we think that one of your soulmates hurt you, really, _really_ badly. And the other soulmate… The other soulmate is gone.” 

Gone. Cloud didn’t need to ask Jessie to clarify what that meant. Gone. Dead. Somewhere along the line, he’d failed one of his soulmates, failed them badly enough that they weren’t in the world anymore. Heavy guilt, along with grief, joined the already riotous twist of negative emotions currently clutching him tight. 

(But even past that, who hurt him? Who had hurt him more than- Cloud’s mind instinctually shied from the very notion of the idea. No, he couldn’t even consider that. Not right now.)

Cloud stared down into his lap with the hand not held in Jessie’s grip clenched into a tight fist. He focused on just breathing. Just taking in one breath after the other. It was a familiar coping tactic that he’d used after arriving in Midgar and having encounters with… him. It still helped now. 

At some point, Biggs had shifted closer, and Cloud closed his eyes and relaxed back into the big, warm hand that began rubbing circles into his back as the other continued stroking through his hair. 

He could deal with all the revelations that this encounter had brought later. 

For now, he had a feeling that his friends (soulmates?) would allow him to take this time to just breathe.

And do his best to think of nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> At one point, Cloud could see the strings, but trauma has caused him to be unable to see them anymore.


End file.
